Eir to seek up to 240 redundancies with one eye on the stock market

Eir is hoping to find up to 240 staff willing to take voluntary redundancies as it eyes a potential stock market float within the next year.

Eir appears to be in the process of trimming down as it looks to shed another few hundred employees through voluntary redundancies, particularly those in office-based roles.

According to The Irish Times, the company hopes that as many as 240 out of a group of 800 staff will take up the offer, but it is not believed to affect those working on its continuing broadband roll-out to rural areas.

The decision to announce these new redundancies has led to speculation that the company is in an advanced planning stage of a future float on the stock exchange and wants to be in a better financial state before doing so.

In a statement, the company referenced the “extremely competitive telecoms market” in Ireland as a factor in the decision and now “faces the necessity for ongoing transformation”.

“The company aims to reduce the number of full-time employees by 200-240. All staff departures will be on an entirely voluntary basis with the majority arising at our Dublin offices and potentially a small number at our regional locations,” it said.

“The proposed restructuring will not impact on the company’s ability to deliver on recent commitments in respect to the roll-out of our rural fibre to the home programme and the recent contract signed with the Government.”

When completed by the end of 2018, Eir’s total fibre footprint in Ireland is set to reach 1.9m premises.

The project is designed to tie in with the National Broadband Plan, which has been revised to connect a separate 542,000 premises, including an additional 84,500 identified for the High-Speed Broadband Map.